San Diego-based Genomatica has raised $45 million in a Series C round of venture funding that will allow the company to scale up production of its sustainable chemical technology to 15,000 liters a day, according to an item today in VentureWire.
Genomatica said last summer it had successfully scaled up technology that uses genetically engineered microbes to make 1,4-butanediol (BDO)-an industrial chemical used to make spandex, automotive plastics, and running shoes. At that time, Genomatica said it had successfully demonstrated a fermentation process that used a 3,000-liter broth of genetically engineered bacteria, sugar, and air to produce BDO—which is usually made from petroleum-based raw materials.
Now the company plans to go from 3,000-liter batches to 15,000 liters, although Genomatica has not yet publicly disclosed where it plans to establish its pilot plant.
Last month, Genomatica revealed a strategic partnership with Houston’s Waste Management to develop ways of making other useful chemicals from syngas, a gas mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide used to make a variety of intermediate chemicals like ammonia and methanol.
New investors in the latest round include VantagePoint, Waste Management, and Bright Capital, according to VentureWire. Existing investors Alloy Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and TPG Biotech also participated.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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